


The Four Days Gavin Went to Class and the One Day He Didn't

by fuckingpubert



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, High School AU, M/M, Mavin, Mentions of Sex, Not A Happy Ending, Self Harm, Stalking, Trigger Warnings, brief mentions of sex, just a warning, rayvin, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckingpubert/pseuds/fuckingpubert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Ray sees Gavin walk through the door of his Chemistry class, he thinks he finally has found what he wants. Of course though, Gavin is already taken; but that doesn't make him any less beautiful. </p><p>The last time Ray sees Gavin walk through the door of his Chemistry class, he can't help but wonder how happy he really is with Michael.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray sees Gavin for the first time. They don't talk much, but it's enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this to get back into the flow of writing fics
> 
> once I'm done with this (maybe even before then) i'm gonna continue with We're The Same, so if you're reading that don't worry, I haven't given up on it 
> 
> enjoy!

"Sorry I'm late," he said in a rushed breath as he literally ran through the door of his Chemistry class. His hair was windswept and he ran his hand through it briskly as if trying to calm it. It didn't work. 

The tired eyed teacher silently dismissed his apology, motioning him towards the class. The boy was new, and admirably attractive; in Ray's opinion anyway. There were only three empty seats in the lab. One of those was right beside Ray, and he couldn't stop himself hoping the boy chose to sit beside him. 

He didn't.

Briefly, Mr Ramsey introduced the new boy as 'Gavin Free', just as he was taking a seat beside Michael. It looked as though he already new Michael. Ray observed them quietly. While Mr Ramsey rambled on about today's lesson, he watch Gavin and Michael, quietly whispering and laughing together. Gavin wore a short sleeved purple shirt and Michael wore green. They clashed horribly, Ray thought bitterly. He may have literally never spoken to Gavin, but he still wanted to take Michael's place as his friend. 

Ray didn't have very many friends.

In fact, he didn't really have any.

Ray wrote down Gavin's name in his notebook. He wrote it over and over again, and traced over the letters where he had already written it once the whole page was full of Gavin. Once he realised what he was doing, he glanced back self-consciously, hoping nobody behind him had glanced over his shoulder.

They had an pairs assignment to do this week. That meant that Ryan Haywood had to come and sit with Ray to work with him every lesson.

Ray wished it was Gavin instead.

He rushed to tear the Gavin page out of his notebook. Crumpling it up, he managed it shove it into his pocket before Ryan had reached his desk. He tried to look as innocent and normal as possible as Ryan took a seat beside Ray. The classroom was buzzing with quiet discussion all around, but Ray was intent on listening to Michael and Gavin.

"Are you still gonna come over tonight?" Michael asked idly as he took notes from the textbook on their desk. Gavin started to chew on his pen. He held it between his teeth, twirled it once and touched it with the tip of his tongue before he removed it from his mouth.

"I dunno." His accent was soothing. 

"Why?" Michael put down his pen. Ray craned his neck to see what he was doing, but readjusted when he realised Michael was just moving to dig through his bag. For what, he did not know, until Gavin retrieved Michael's glasses from the front of his shirt, where he had clearly forgotten that he'd left them.

"Here, idiot." He grinned, as did Michael while he slipped his glasses onto his face. "I'm still unpacking everything."

"Well, I'll come over to your place then," Michael settled.

"Okay." Gavin agreed.

"What are you doing?" Ryan's voice distracted Ray from listening in any further. He turned to Ryan instantly, looking like a deer in the headlights.

"Nothing." Ray lied. "I was looking at the board." Mr. Ramsey hadn't written anything on the blackboard, so it was easy to call out his lie, but Ryan had clearly decided not to.

Ray was _weird_.

That was quite ludicrous coming from Ryan, but really, Ray was just plain  _weird_. He, along with everyone else, thought it best to avoid befriending him. The only person who had ever really tried was Lindsay Tuggey, and it had quickly become clear that he was creepily obsessive. She couldn't deal with it. He continued to stalk her for four months after she stopped talking to him.   

So yeah. Ray was definitely weird. 

Ryan tried his best to work through the assignment with Ray, but he was again trying to eavesdrop on Gavin and Michael. Eventually, he gave up and just left him to it. Ryan could finish the project by himself if it was really necessary. 

"Is your mom making spaghetti again?" Michael asked, looking excited by the prospect. 

"My mum won't be home until late, so I wouldn't think so..."

"Oh."

"I could make you dinner?"

"Yeah." 

Ray quickly scrambled for his pen to make notes. He jotted down about Gavin's mom making spaghetti and then he wrote that Gavin could cook. 

Ray would have liked to try food that Gavin had cooked. 

Or the spaghetti his mom made. 

"Do you still have the condoms I gave you when I visited?" Michael asked Gavin very casually. Ray gaped at them.

"Michael!" Gavin squawked, surveying the area around them, desperately praying nobody had heard. His eyes locked with Ray's. It only took him a split second to pretend he hadn't been listening. Ray wasn't very convincing, but Gavin snapped back to Michael regardless. "No. I haven't got them anymore."

"Why?" Michael's voice rose, if only slightly. "Where are they?"

"Packed up somewhere? I told you we haven't unpacked yet. I might have thrown them away. I don't really want my mum finding them when she's unpacking..." 

"Ugh, idiot. We have to go to my place then."

"I told you, I  _can't_."

The bell sounded, dragging Ray away from Gavin and Michael's conversation. He glanced beside him to find that Ryan had filled a whole three pages with notes from their textbook. "I'm sorry...I...I'll do some work tonight. I will."

"Don't worry about it, man." Ryan dismissed, gathering up his things to put into his bag with a nonchalant shrug. He handled all of his belongings with intense care. Ryan had pianist's hands, Ray noticed. 

"But I  _am_ worried about it." He pushed. He picked up on the way that Ryan flinched away from him. It wasn't because he was scary. It was because he was being weird again. "Sorry. I'll write notes tonight and I'll bring them tomorrow."

"If you want," Ryan left the classroom in a hurry. 

With much less care than Ryan, Ray threw everything but his notebook into his bag. He pulled the Gavin page out from his pocket and straightened it out on the table, before he slipped it between some of the other pages in his book. Throwing his bag over his shoulder, Ray hugged his notebook to his chest and made for the door. Mr Ramsey was reading a dirty magazine hidden behind a newspaper again when he left. 

Out in the hall, Ray had been in such a rush to get away, he'd walked straight in to the back of Michael, immediately dropping his book. The Gavin page fluttered out, and he scrambled to catch it before anybody saw. In the process, he had dropped his bag and let his book hit the floor, landing open an a page where he had sketched pictures of all the different ways Lindsay wore her hair. Ray caught his Gavin page and hid it safely in his pocket again. That was clearly the best place for it. He was on his knees on the floor

Michael called him an idiot and spat at him before he stormed off in a different direction. 

Gavin crouched beside him, handing him his notebook. "These are good drawings," he told him, admiring the sketches of Lindsay. His eyes were green, surrounded by a circle of grey, with specks that were mostly yellow, but in some places, almost purple. He licked his upper lip briefly. The beginnings of a beard showed around his mouth, which was in the welcoming shape of a small grin. "Do you like this girl?"

Ray realised he had stared too long when Gavin's smile become awkward. He quickly snatched his notebook back and slammed it shut, hugging it to his chest once again. "She's my friend."

"You draw her a lot?"

"Not anymore."

 

* * *

 

 

When Ray got home that night, he wrote all about his conversation with Gavin in the hall. He scribbled his own description of the way his face looked close up and tried to draw him, but he couldn't quite capture his essence; that didn't stop him from filling five pages with attempts. 

He couldn't wait to go to Chemistry class tomorrow.

When Ray started to think about tomorrow, he realised that it  _was_ tomorrow, and went to the bathroom to shower. 

 


	2. The Second Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray goes to Michael's party, desperate to see Gavin again. He didn't expect to find him in such a state.
> 
> He still can't quite figure him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for any poor editing, i wanted to get this up ASAP 
> 
> comments and kudos appreciated! :)

_I watch him from across the room,_ Ray scrawled in his notebook.  _He has beautiful handwriting. As he reaches up to press the chalk to the blackboard at the front of the class, his shirt raises just slightly. There are bruises on his hips. I wonder if he notices._

Ryan Haywood dared to look over Ray's shoulder at what it was that he was writing. He scribbled rather loudly and it seemed far too enthusiastic to be Chemistry work. 

_Gavin is very smart. I would like for him to teach me how he works out these equations._

Immediately, Ryan looked away, feeling too intrusive. 

Ray was  _weird._

"Wow." Mr Ramsey commented, scanning over what Gavin had written in his neat, rounded script. Even while impressed, with his eyes widened, Mr Ramsey still looked exhausted and uninterested, Ray noticed. "Excellent, Gavin. Take your seat." 

"Show off." Michael coughed, and he got a few laughs from the tired classroom as Gavin pouted and stormed back over to their desk. 

Ray didn't laugh.

When Gavin had settled in his chair again, he rested his head on Michael's shoulder. Michael huffed and puffed about it, pushing him away. 

Ray would  _never_ do that. 

He spent most of class sketching the back of Gavin's head in his notebook. Last night, he had spent so much time on Gavin that he'd forgotten to write up his notes, like he had promised Ryan he would. It was just impossible to focus with Gavin in the picture. 

By the time that Ray had drawn out three pages worth of the back of Gavin, Ryan already had their experiment set up. He was timing rates of reaction or something. Ray didn't really understand it, but he noticed that Ryan had started to wear his glasses again. They were too small for his face, but they still suited him quite well. Ray drew them quietly. 

"Expensive?" He asked abruptly. 

"What?" Ryan stared at him, blatantly baffled by Ray's random comment. 

"Your glasses. Were they expensive? They're quite hard to draw." This seemed to attract Ryan's attention to Ray's notebook, which made Ray extremely nervous. Was he being weird again? Ray didn't want to be weird.  

"Look, can I just get back to the project please?" Ryan sighed in exasperation, and Ray thought it best not to disturb him anymore. He heard a quiet giggle from in front of him that caught his attention. Gavin was watching him, the same grin from yesterday on his face. After drawing that grin over and over again, Ray knew it very well. It was lovely and warm and so welcoming. Gavin gave a small wave before he turned back to Michael, who looked angry. Michael always looked angry. 

He wanted to listen in on their conversation again, so he did.

Ray found it was a lot harder to do so today.

They were whispering.

"Just let me see it." Michael talked between gritted teeth, keeping his tone hushed all the while. Ray had to strain to hear him at all. "If you didn't have anything to hide, you wouldn't be making such a big deal out of this."

"I'm not making a big deal out of anything." Gavin responded. He was extremely calm when faced with a frustrated Michael, which Ray thought was very admirable. Michael was often angry with Ray, and he never would have been able to keep such composure. "I just don't want you going through my phone anymore. I want some privacy Michael." He started to write up some notes. He was behaving idly, like he was rather disinterested and had already had this exact conversation far too many times. " _You're_ the only one who's making a big deal out of this."

"Oh I am?" Michael countered, seemingly growing even more frustrated, if that was even possible. "Well, we can talk about this tonight."

Almost instantaneously, Gavin completely lost his composure. "Why? We don't need to talk about it tonight...It's your party tonight anyway, we won't be in...private."

Michael grunted something inappropriate when Gavin reminded him of the party. "Shit, I forgot about that. Look, just give me your damn phone and we won't  _have_ to have  _talk_."

Gavin flinched. He handed over his phone to Michael robotically.

That made Ray flinch. 

 

* * *

 

 

Ray sat in his bedroom, pondering over whether or not he should attend Michael's party. He could hear the music pounding from next door where Michael lived. He knew that the only reason he had been invited was because of Michael's mother. She would have been furious had he not invited Ray. The two of them were best friends as kids. They would always speak of cutting a hole in the wall that divided their bedrooms, since their houses were literally touching, so they could go to each other's rooms to play whenever they wanted. That was a long time ago though. They hardly spoke now. 

Michael was  _popular_ in high school and Ray was  _weird_. They didn't interact anymore. 

Ray wanted to see Gavin.

Gavin would definitely be at Michael's party. 

He grabbed his keys and shoved them into the pocket of his jeans. Ray's hands itched to grab his notebook, but he wouldn't dare bring it to a social gathering. He may have been weird, but he wasn't insane. At least, he didn't think he was insane. Did anybody really think that they were insane?

He didn't bother saying goodbye to his mom before he left for Michael's house. She didn't ask him where he was going, and she didn't bother saying goodbye to him either. 

The front door was open, but Michael's mother was sitting outside to stop anybody unwanted coming in. The biggest smile formed on her face when she saw Ray. She was a tired looking woman and she always wore lipstick that was more of an orange than a peach. She got up to hug him, like Ray knew she would, and just as he had expected, she smelled of lavender. 

"Ray, sweetheart, I'm so glad you came." Michael's mother kissed his forehead, and he made a mental note to wipe away the orange remains of her lipstick once he was inside.

"It's good to see you, Mrs Jones. Is Michael inside?"

"Of course, honey, go right in."

Once Ray was inside the house, the music was inside his head. The heat bore into his skin. Unsettling as it was, he continued to push through the crowds of sweaty, drunk people holding generic red cups and swaying to the beat. He caught a flash of messy light brown hair and immediately let himself get excited. Too soon, though, he soon found out, when he ran straight for Ryan. He stood with a small group consisting of himself, Lindsay and Barbara. 

"Ray... I didn't realise you would be getting an invite," Ryan laughed quietly, as did Barbara. He noticed the way that Lindsay shifted nervously towards Ryan. How could she have possibly thought he wouldn't notice that? Maybe she didn't care. Maybe she wanted Ray to know that she thought he was a total creep. 

"Have you seen Gavin?" Ray asked them insistently. 

"He's in the bathroom." Barbara told him, giggling quietly. There was a dirty coloured liquid in her cup which Ray assumed was a mix of various drinks. He didn't care enough to guess which ones, instead turning and heading for the bathroom. "Hey! He's in the bathroom  _with Michael_." Barbara tried to explain to him. "You know." She started to make blow job actions which made Lindsay and Ryan both burst out laughing. Ray didn't think Ryan would have found that very funny, and immediately calculated that his laughter was forced. Was he trying to fit in with them? Did he like Lindsay?

There was no time to investigate. 

"Okay. Thanks." Ray said to Barbara, continuing on his path for the bathroom. Apparently, they had quickly given up trying to stop him from venturing there. 

The bathroom was upstairs, where the flood of people would not trek. The stairs were dangerous for a group of drunks; this meant that there was plenty of room in the hall for Ray to sit outside and wait for them to be done. He waited there for a good ten minutes before the door opened. Luckily, the door concealed him, since Michael was the first to leave. He closed the door behind him and returned to his party, completely oblivious of Ray's presence, which he almost wanted to laugh at. 

Ray wondered if it would be appropriate to go in now.

He didn't really know, so he just went with his gut instinct. 

"Hi Gavin," he mumbled, opening the door and slipping inside. He remembered to close it behind him like Michael had. 

The last thing Ray had expected to find was Gavin curled up in a ball in the corner of his room, bawling his eyes out, looking an absolute mess. There were two empty cups beside him and his hair was wet. He smelled like beer, as if somebody had thrown a cup of it in his face. There was a red mark all around his throat that made Ray flinch. What had happened to him?

Ray was a deductive genius. He could generally figure out exactly what someone was thinking from the way they were holding their pen, but relationships and romance had always been something of a mystery to him. 

Gavin was an even bigger mystery.

Gavin  _and_ Michael were completely unsolvable.  _  
_

"Are you okay?" Ray asked stupidly. Of course he wasn't okay.

Gavin let out a strangled, forced laugh, immediately trying to recollect himself. He wiped his eyes of tears and stood up, bringing a slither of dignity with him. "Oh, Ray! From Chemistry...right?" Gavin tried a smile, but it looked awfully painful. 

"Yeah, that's me." He mumbled. Ray felt so horribly intrusive and a very compelling desire to leave the room and pretend he had never walked in. "I...Barbara said you were in here, I...I just thought I'd say hi. So...hi."

The smile on Gavin's face morphed into something slightly more real at that. He sat down on the edge of the bath and encouraged Ray to join him, which he did. "Well hi. You know, I've noticed you look at me a lot in Chemistry." He was almost grinning by now, and Ray liked that he could have caused such a sudden change in Gavin.

Gavin was strong.

He made a mental note to write about this in his notebook. 

"I...I do. Sometimes." He shrugged with a sheepish smile.

"I like that." Gavin admitted. "When you look at me. I feel safe." 

"Okay."

"Do you know what that means? When I say that?"

"Not really...You've got marks on you..." Ray indicated to Gavin's neck, where the red marks were starting to take the form of darkening bruises. 

Gavin's smile started to hurt again. His eyes began to water. "You're kinda clueless, aren't you Ray?"

"I don't know. I guess. Why are you crying?" Ray felt a sudden urge to reach out and hold Gavin's hand, but it was such a foreign feeling that he ignored it. 

"I don't think he's getting better Ray. I think he's getting  _worse_."

"Michael?"

"Michael."

Ray was completely baffled. He just couldn't figure out what the deal was with Michael and Gavin at all and that frustrated him quite a lot. Ray didn't experience this. Ever. 

"Does he not love you?" He speculated. 

"Michael loves me to death."

 


	3. The Third Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray finally gets his chance to really talk to Gavin, and tries to figure out what's going on.  
> Relationships are quite the struggle for Ray to comprehend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are very much appreciated <3
> 
> all of my mistakes are due to late night editing, bc i am a moron :)

Ray very rarely used the bathroom at school, but when nature calls, there's no denying. 

He spent a long time staring at himself in the mirror. He had managed to get his English teacher to let him out of class to go, so there was nobody else here. Ray tried to picture himself like Gavin. With careful detail that could only be picked up on by very close analysis, Ray painted Gavin onto his face in his mind. Starting with the dark purple bruises that vaguely resembled hand marks on his throat, Ray worked his way from the neck up. Lips that looked so soft and inviting, even with a small red split on one side. A nose that was oddly charming and ridiculously large at the same time. The most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, remembering the small specks of yellow that flared when he got up close. The light bruise that had started forming a ring around his left eye that made him look a little more tired than usual. 

The bell signalling the end of the day sounded.

Hair that stuck up in only the most perfect of places. Wildly unkempt and, sometimes, matted and tangled, as though he never had the time to brush it through. Brown, but also blond.

Students started to flood into the bathroom, filling the space around Ray. 

The blood red mark, surrounded by black and purple bruising that he desperately tried to cover up with his hair. 

All of these things were quite subtle.

But Ray saw them. 

Before he noticed anybody was there, the exact picture he had painted was stood right beside him. It was a very odd way to be awoken from a daydream; by the exact person you had been dreaming about. It was like waking up and realising you had never really been asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

_"Who were you in the bathroom with?"_

_After a long and frankly emotionally exhausting party, the house was finally empty. Michael's mother was wandering around with a black bag, picking up empty bottles and crushed cups. Gavin had been splashing his neck with cold water, hoping to relieve some of the pain from where Michael's hands had held him so tightly, when he was interrupted by a tone of voice that gave him more chills than the water ever could._

_"What?" He turned off the water and spun himself around to face Michael, patting his throat dry with a towel. Gavin couldn't help but wince slightly, and he saw his boyfriend roll his eyes. "I wasn't with anybody. I was just...freshening up."_

_"You don't look very fresh. Frankly, you look a mess."  This reminded Gavin that he was supposed to be losing weight. His boyfriend didn't like it so much when he couldn't see the dips of his collar bones._

_Michael was angry. He didn't have to yell for Gavin to know that; yet he would do so soon anyway._

_"Well, that's what I was trying to do."_

_"I want you to tell me who you were with." He was talking through gritted teeth now, and Gavin couldn't be closer to the wall if he tried. Still, he did try. Gavin was always trying. Never quite hard enough, clearly. Because no matter how hard he tried, he was never good enough for Michael. Never good enough._

_Really, it was futile lying to him. He always got it out of Gavin one way or another._

_"Just Ray..."_

_"Why did you lie to me?"_

_"Do you want me to give you a ride home, sweetie?" The voice of Michael's mother should have been a comfort, but it wasn't. There was nothing she could do, and she had learned that the hard way. When Michael was angry, Michael wasn't interested in being calmed down. When Michael was angry, Michael liked to expel all of that anger on whoever he could. That wasn't his fault, Gavin always told himself. That was just his way of coping, Gavin was convinced._

_"Shut up." Immediately, her son had turned on her, and almost as quickly as he had done so, she had moved to a different room to clean up whatever mess lay there. "Now tell me," Michael started again. "Why did you lie to me?"_

_Gavin answered completely honestly. "I was scared you would be angry with me."_

_"I am angry with you. Are you scared?"_

_"No."_

_"Are you lying?"_

_An awful kind of silence filled the room. There was only the depressing sound of Michael's mother cleaning up the next room over, before for the second time that night, there were hands wrapped around his throat, holding him against the wall. Gavin let his eyes close so he wouldn't have to see. He found that it hurt much less when he couldn't see that this was Michael._

_"Are you fucking lying to me again!?" Michael quite literally screamed in his face, and he just about managed the faintest whisper to confirm Michael's statement. The scent of alcohol lingered on his breath. That didn't do much good. It only made him more angry than he would have been otherwise._

_Gavin was given a moment to breathe as the force disappeared from his neck. In almost the exact same second though, Michael knocked the air out of him with a punch to his chest._

_"You won't fucking text_ Dan  _anymore," another punch, but to his face this time. "And you won't fucking talk to Ray. Do you understand me?"  
_

_The last hit had sent him to the ground, and he lay there with his eyes shut tight. He would be pleased if he never had to get up again. Michael's mother was sobbing, and he could hear that just barely over his own pathetic sniveling._

_"Get up. Look at me!"_

_Gavin had to do as he was told. When he opened his eyes and saw Michael, all of the pain from the last few minutes hit him with ten times the force. It had all been just a nightmare before now. Before he could see him._

_It was like waking up and realising you had never really been asleep._

 

* * *

 

 "Ray? Are you okay?" Gavin asked, genuine concern in his tone despite the fact that Ray was  _more_ than okay now that Gavin was here. "You looked quite distant."

"I'm okay. Great, actually." He couldn't help his dumb grin. 

"Good..." his smile was less genuine than his voice. It was upsetting, because Gavin had a beautiful smile.

Gavin had a beautiful everything.

Gavin was Gavin. 

"Listen," he started, in that smooth but somehow broken voice that he had. Immediately, Ray was engaged. "This might sound... _weird_ ," a word Ray was far too familiar with. "But can I come to your house tonight?" 

Gavin's hands were shaking. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. His lip quivered underneath his teeth, which gnawed on it gently. All of these things would have gone unnoticed by anybody else. Anybody other than Ray. 

"Sure...Um, there isn't much to...do there. But you can!" He quickly assured, having a heart attack on the inside because  _Gavin_ was asking to go to  _his_ house? There would be so many observations to make! "Can I ask...why?"

The conversation paused for a moment, and it wasn't awkward for either of the two. Ray lived a lot of his life in silence and Gavin was waiting until he was ready to speak. The crowd of boys had thinned out a bit, and it left room for Gavin to whisper just loud enough for Ray and nobody else. 

"I'm scared, Ray."

"Scared? I don't think I understand..." 

They were interrupted by a thunderstorm that was Michael. Gavin's head shot round to face the door so fast that Ray honestly thought his neck might break. His entire demeanor changed. There was no confidence present (not that he had much of it before) and he made himself much smaller than he had been before. 

"Gavin!?" The red head yelled, sounding both exasperated and angered. It was uncommon to see Michael smiling these days. "Hurry the fuck up! We've got places to be!"

"I can't go today..." Gavin mumbled, in a tiny voice that barely sounded like him at all. This wasn't the way he spoke to Michael in class. Ray wondered why that was. "My mum wants me to come home. I haven't been at home in ages, Michael, I'm sorry..."

For a brief moment, Michael paused to survey their surroundings. There was only Ray and a few other students. Apparently, this was enough for him to change his attitude. He gave Gavin a gentle, almost careful, hug, and Gavin immediately responded. "Okay. Tell your mom I said hey." He hummed, kissing Gavin hard enough on his bruised forehead that it made him wince. "I'll call you." 

Once he was gone, Gavin tried to smile at Ray. It was blank. Meaningless. 

It wasn't Gavin. 

"Why did you lie?" Ray asked him, genuinely confused. Relationships were a huge, baffling mystery. The only mystery he didn't think he'd be able to solve. How did people only focus their love on one person? People are amazing, why not love all of them? Still though, Ray could almost imagine himself putting all of his love onto Gavin. Almost. 

And how were you supposed to treat somebody who you loved? The  _one and only_ person you love. What do you do to show them that they are different from any other person in your life? 

How do you treat them?

How did Michael treat Gavin, and how did Gavin treat Michael?

"I didn't want to upset him...Can we...wait a little while please? Just until he's gone." Gavin asked him quietly, timidly, again shifting from one foot to the other and biting his trembling lip.

"Of course..."

 

* * *

 

 

Ray let Gavin borrow some old clothes to sleep in for the night. Despite the fact he was quite a lot taller than Ray, he was  _much_ slimmer, and fit into the clothes quite nicely. He wore a loose black shirt and grey slacks and Ray felt a desperate urge to draw him how he was on the bed, leaning against the wall with his knees up, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. His collar bones were almost as prominent as his bruises now were. They had developed a lot throughout the day. What had once been the darker purple parts of the marks were now black an the lighter purple areas had darkened a lot. Ray wanted to brush them away. 

"Are you staring at...my..." Gavin couldn't seem to choke out the rest of his sentence. 

"Yeah." 

"I wish I didn't have them. They're horrible. Michael says they make me look ugly." 

It had come to Gavin's attention that Ray didn't quite understand the way a relationship worked. He wasn't really grasping the fact that Michael was hitting Gavin, abusing him in more ways than one. He hadn't caught on that all of this was wrong. This was a marvelous thing. It was, in fact, just what he thought he needed. He could tell Ray anything, and he wouldn't understand it anyway, so it didn't matter that he knew. 

"We can cover them. My mom wears make up." Ray shrugged with a small smile. He got up to fetch the small bag of cosmetics that his mother kept by her bedside and brought them back to his bedroom where Gavin was waiting, laughing to himself. "What's funny?" 

"Nothing," Gavin shook his head with a little grin, shuffling towards Ray and crossing his legs. "Make me pretty." He chuckled. 

With careful and gentle precision that Gavin never thought Michael could master, Ray started to dab small amounts of foundation over his ever-growing marks. He started with the bruising on his throat and worked his way up until, eventually, his entire face was painted in make-up. More importantly, all of his bruises were gone. The mirror on Ray's wall, showing him himself before Michael, showing him himself when he could laugh and not feel bad about it, when he could smile and genuinely be happy, brought awful tears to his eyes. 

This was who he could be with Ray. 

And this was who he would never be with Michael. 

When he tried to wipe away his tears, he ended up pulling away parts of his facade, and that only made him cry even more.

"Gavin...?" Ray whispered hesitantly. "Why are you crying?"

 

 


	4. The Final Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Michael has taken it a step too far.
> 
> Ray understands, now.

"You always look upset," Ray told Gavin on Sunday morning. The two of them had spent the entire weekend together. They were sat in a small cafe, the only cafe that was in this town, over small cups of cheap coffee. It tasted like dirt and regret, but it was still coffee. When Gavin poured his milk into his coffee, he never poured enough. Through observations, Ray had remembered to pass him more milk every time he put it down to test the strength. Gavin never got it quite right on the first try. 

Gavin had never dated anyone other than Michael. Not seriously anyway. 

"I'm not upset right now," he shrugged simply. Sometimes, Ray's blunt and straight forward questioning stung a little bit. It was such a rough topic to talk about. But he didn't understand. Gavin had figured out by now that Ray was...incompetent. Or maybe not incompetent, but rather uneducated on the basis of relationships. He didn't quite understand what was happening to Gavin, no matter how many hints he tried to drop. 

Then again,  _Gavin_ hardly understood what was happening to Gavin. 

Michael was supposed to be perfect for him. And he was. He really was. Michael never stopped thinking about Gavin, and always protected him from others. He spent his own hard earned money on buying Gavin a number of random gifts which he was extremely grateful for. He would constantly shower the Brit in kisses and attention. Gavin couldn't help but think that maybe  _he_ was the problem. Maybe he took things too seriously, or he was just so irritating that angering Michael was a day to day activity for him. 

But Gavin was informed. He knew all about relationships. And Michael was certainly not a healthy partner for him to stay with.

Still, these awful thoughts would always come and go. 

"How do you feel right now?" Ray asked, through a mouthful of the bacon bagel he had just purchased. Gavin couldn't help a small chuckle as he dabbed the side of Ray's mouth with a napkin. 

"Safe."

* * *

 

The hurricane of anger and frustration that was Michael interrupted Ray in the middle of drawing Gavin. They had stayed in that damn cafe all day, wasting all their money on crappy drinks and laughing at each others dumb jokes. At some point, Ray had pulled out his notebook, and Gavin had requested that he draw him. Nobody had ever asked Ray to draw them before. It was a strange and wonderful experience. Gavin was a strange and wonderful experience. And Ray never wanted him to go away.

But because of Michael, he had to. 

"Hey Gavin," his voice sounded at the door, after the tiny ringing of the bell that indicated someone new had arrived. The two of them had grown so used to it that they hadn't even glanced up until they heard him.

Gavin shrunk. He physically made himself smaller. It was quite scary to watch that happen to him.

"Michael," he gasped out, scrambling for an excuse, a  _reason_ for being here. There was nothing. 

Gavin's boyfriend pulled up a seat and sat with the two of them at their table; completely uninvited. 

"What have you two been up to all day then?" Michael asked them, in a tone that was far too cheerful for him. "All fucking weekend." That sounded more like the Michael that they both knew.

Ray answered, because it was clear to him that Gavin had choked on any words he wanted to say. His throat was completely dried out. "Nothing, really."

"Nothing, huh?" Michael laughed bitterly. Even Ray felt this strange need to hide from him. The cafe suddenly felt painfully quiet. 

Things stayed this way for a moment. A moment became a while, and a while felt like it had become hours and hours. Gavin was practically shaking, and it certainly didn't go unnoticed, but Ray was absolutely clueless on what to do about it; Michael wouldn't dare do anything about it here. Honestly, Ray really didn't understand the tension. He knew that Michael was mad because Michael was always mad, and he knew that Gavin was scared. But really, all that was certain was that he absolutely despised this. To see Gavin look so helpless, and  _feel_ the exact same way. 

"Give me your phone, Gavin." Michael demanded, holding his hand out expectantly. Another silence occurred, and stretched out for longer than was comfortable for anyone. Michael did not move an inch. 

Horribly, Ray found himself thinking;

_Please Gavin. Please just do it._

"No, Michael." Gavin denied. 

* * *

 

In the end, there had been nothing Ray could do to stop Michael from dragging his boyfriend out of the cafe. He had followed them all the way home, but Michael slammed the door in his face. Immediately, he ran up to his own bedroom in the house next door, a place he didn't really call home, but it would do. 

Ray pressed his ear carefully against the wall that divided his bedroom from Michael's. He was hugging his notebook desperately to his chest. 

He didn't know it yet, but his unfinished sketch of Gavin in the cafe would haunt him forever.

Putting his messy thoughts aside, Ray simply listened.

First, there was the slamming of Michael's bedroom door, and then there was sobbing. Gavin's cries, he realised.

"Michael,  _please._ I have to go home. Michael, I need to go home." 

Ray heard horrifically clearly as Michael punched Gavin hard enough that he must have fallen. Still, he continued to cry and plead, practically begging to go home at this point. It was all too vivid in Ray's mind as Michael kicked the air out of Gavin's lungs, and he choked on his own desperate pleas. On his cries for help. 

Frantically trying to withdraw himself from the situation, Ray opened up his notebook and flipped to a recent drawing of Gavin. With the most gentle precision, he traced the sketched bruise on his face. He smudged it away with manic desperation. This was not what he wanted Gavin to look like. This bloodied and bruised Gavin was  _Michael's_ Gavin.  _Ray's_ Gavin laughed and drank coffee with him for hours. Ray's Gavin said 'thank you' to his mom and called her 'ma'am'. 

Ray's Gavin cried when he put make up on him, to hide the version of himself he didn't want to be. 

And while Ray's Gavin cried hysterically for help from next door, Ray felt a wetness on his cheeks. Why was nobody helping him? Surely all of their neighbours must have heard Gavin's screaming, so why was nobody doing anything for him? 

"Why don't you do something for him, Ray?" His mother's voice shocked him out of his thoughts. She was stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, and all Ray could make out of her was her big hair and her cigarette. Ray had gathered that his mother quite liked Gavin while he had been here. He was well-mannered, and probably what she had wanted Ray to be. She wouldn't give a shit otherwise. That's when Ray remembered why nobody was helping Gavin. Everybody in this whole damn neighbourhood didn't give a single shit. As long as they weren't suffering, nobody else mattered. "Call the police, Ray." She took a long puff of her cigarette and left Ray with that.

Ray didn't think Gavin would want him to call the police.

No, he didn't believe that at all.

If he could offer Gavin any help at all, it would be his own.

Without even giving it a second  thought, Ray dashed full pelt down the stairs, out of the door before his mother could stop him; not that he thought she would bother trying to. He was pounding on Michael's door before he even realised where he was. "Mrs Jones! Please, open the door, it's Ray!" 

There was a moment of shuffling from inside the house, but not long enough for Ray to reconsider his decision. The door flew open, and Michael's mother was pulling Ray into her arms, her orange lips trembling, tear pouring from her eyes like tap water. It was in that one moment that Ray became scared. He hadn't been, not until he was being pulled inside the house.

Now he was terrified. 

Still, his feet carried him where his mind dare not go. He was shoving open the door to Michael's room and screaming words that were on his lips before they were in his mind. 

But the sight of Gavin, wrapped carefully in blankets on the bed, his chest rising and falling steadily, covered in bruises and blood, but still content in his sleep, stopped him. Michael was sat beside the sleeping Gavin, stroking his hair with calm affection. 

"Hi, Ray." He mumbled, his throat cracking under the words.

"Hello Michael. Is Gavin okay?"

"He'll be fine."

* * *

 

Michael left his house the next morning without Gavin by his side. Ray had walked out at the exact same time as him, as he did nearly every morning, but they refused to walk together. They weren't the same, Michael and Ray, and they both knew that.

But they had both fallen in equally sick and twisted versions of love with the same broken boy. 

Ray was unhealthily obsessed and Michael was lovingly violent. Michael cared  _too_ much. Or at least, that's what he told himself. 

They walked to school in a single file line, neither looking at or speaking to the other. Nobody wanting to mention last night. Both thinking of Gavin. 

\---

Chemistry class was painful before Gavin walked in. It was insufferable as soon as he opened the door. 

"Sorry I'm late," he said in a rushed breath. 

The classroom fell dead silent, and the silence dragged out for much longer than a moment. There was hardly anything left of Gavin Free. He was drowned out by bruises and dried blood. 

"Jesus Christ, Gavin," Mr. Ramsey muttered under his breath, immediately getting up to usher his student out of the classroom, leaving a room full of confused teenagers behind. Well, all but two of them were confused. 

Michael spun in his chair to catch Ray's eye.

They shared a knowing look. 

Neither one said a word. 

And that was the last time Gavin went to class. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for my lateness <3


	5. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~i am almost as unreliable as an author as i am as a person~
> 
> on a serious note, i feel awful about how long i left this series hanging. thank you so much if you are a returning reader, i promise i will be more reliable in the future <3
> 
> please let me know what you think!

The first day that Gavin _didn’t_ come to class had been interesting to say the least.

It started off abnormally quiet and ended loudly and abruptly.

Mr Ramsey had put every ounce of his being into teaching as normal, into pretending that Gavin Free, who, had he been a better teacher, he may have been able to help, wasn’t conspicuously absent, and into keeping everybody focused. Sadly, the safe room he had tried so desperately to create was soon breached by the forces of reality. Two men in uniform, flashing badges, interrupted their class to usher Michael Jones away.

As soon as the door closed behind him, the rumours started up in full force.

Michael had an insane fight with Gavin, they said, Michael was using Gavin like a slave; no, they argue, Gavin’s parents were abusive, and Michael was the only one he knew about it; that’s not true, they claim.

Mr Ramsey did not get a hold of the class again after that.

\---

 In the weeks that followed the last day Ray had seen Gavin Free, their Chemistry lessons were often interrupted by police officers, who always appeared with the intention of speaking to Michael Jones.

Geoff Ramsey quit teaching that year. Ray often wondered where he had ended up, if he had lost himself in a bottle of whiskey, or if he’d finally made what he wanted of himself.

Ryan Haywood had been accepted into a big college that Ray couldn’t quite recall the name of.

Lindsay Tuggey and Barbara Dunkleman no longer spoke to Michael Jones.

In fact, over the course of the year, Ray couldn’t help but notice that nobody really spoke to Michael Jones anymore.

Michael had picked up the habit of smoking now. Lindsay was working in the café over the summer, and always wore her hair up; Ray frequented that café a lot these days. Though he no longer saw Ryan, from what Lindsay had told him, Ray knew that he was studying Theatre, and was doing extremely well. Barbara was actively striving for an internship with a big company Ray had never heard of.

 Typically, Ray had some insight on what everybody was doing with their lives.

Everybody except Gavin.

No one had heard from, or seen Gavin since he had been ushered out of their chemistry classroom by Mr Ramsey last year. Ray could still paint his bloodied and bruised picture perfectly in his mind; he hadn’t dared try to draw Gavin since though. It worried Ray, that if he were to make any attempt to capture Gavin’s image now, when he no longer got to view the real thing, it would completely corrupt his memory. And Ray could think of nothing worse than to forget Gavin Free.

All that he knew of Gavin now, was what Michael had told him.

Michael could tell Ray what had _probably_ happened.

Gavin had _probably_ gone home to England. It was _possible_ that he’d finally gotten into the film industry; something Ray hadn’t know Gavin was interested in. He _could have_ found himself a new boyfriend, though Michael doubted that part.

Ray waited everyday, for a call, a letter, an email, _any_ sign of Gavin. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do. As of yet, the only piece of Gavin he had left to hang onto were his own drawings. And hold to them he did.

But with every passing second without Gavin, Ray could feel the parts of himself he had found shrinking.

\---

Michael, Ray had thought, must have been just as torn up about Gavin as he was.

There was nobody else he could think of, no one who could possibly comprehend the cold reality of life without Gavin.

Where else was he supposed to go?

\---

Michael Jones shrunk back into himself once Gavin was gone.

The heatwaves of summer brought out fresh smiles and minimal clothing in most, but by the time the sun had shown its face, Michael had started to wear hoodies and beanies again.

Anything he could hide under, Ray realised.

His eyes were heavy-lidded now, his teeth less white. The smoking, the drinking and the sleepless nights were certainly taking their toll on Michael, and it seemed as though he’d been neglecting a haircut for the year. It didn’t bother him. All of the mirrors in his house were smashed now, and neither Michael nor his mother had the energy to replace them anymore.

Michael hit, less out of anger now, and more out of necessity.

Michael needed to feel _something_.

\---

Ray hadn’t expected he would ever see Gavin again.

He presumed that the knock on his front door that came towards the end of summer, when the fresh scents of spring were finally starting to bleed into the dense air, would come from his mother; who wasn’t due back from work for at least another hour, but it wouldn’t shock Ray if she had left early.  

In order to get up and reach the door, Ray had needed to quite literally dig himself out from the comfort and protection of a fortress of blankets, pizza boxes and sketchbooks. If it was his sorry mother at the door, she would have some serious explaining to do for her disturbance.

\---

Dan tried his best.

He had done everything in his power to convince Gavin that coming back here was a truly terrible idea.

It had been a whole year since Gavin’s short-lived migration to the US, and overtime, he had finally built up the courage to come back, to visit his family again; so long as he was permitted to bring Dan of course. Back home in the UK, he had recovered enough that the town his cousins lived in no longer reminded him of loving hands around his throat.

“Gav, if you had pressed charges it would be a different story entirely, you know that, but…I can’t let you go back there. Not while he’s still there.” Dan was desperate to sway Gavin from his impromptu visit back to ‘a friend’s’ house. It wasn’t Michael who Gavin was going to see (he may have forgiven him, but he wasn’t an idiot) but it was close enough to him that it deeply concerned Dan.

“Ray lives next door. Michael’s not exactly going to come dashing out of his house to see me, Dan, he won’t get anywhere near me.”

“Yes he will. In fact, if I let you go to that house, Michael will be _right next door_ to you- “

“Dan, _please_.” There was that face. A frown tugged at the corner of Gavin’s mouth when he paused, and the brightness of his eyes faded. Gavin’s face was always an open-book, like a window to his very being. Dan had never seen a person with such an uncountable number of expressions, but this was one he had grown accustomed to seeing. This was Gavin’s face when he was thinking about what Michael Jones had done to him. “You don’t understand what he was to me; and I left without saying a damn word to him. I _have_ to see Ray.”

“I thought you wanted to leave all of this behind you. Ray won’t remind you of Michael?”

Gavin honestly could have laughed.

He couldn’t have imagined two people more different than Ray and Michael. If Michael was blazing fire, Ray was a calm and gentle rainfall. If his time with Michael had been a dark descent, being with Ray was like flying.

\---

Opening the door to Gavin Free was, at first, disorientating.

He was doubtlessly Gavin, though he looked nothing like Ray’s old drawings of him. Where his skin was once painted red, purple and black, he had something of a tan now, with not a single mark in sight. The green of his eyes was somehow brighter. Gavin’s hair was tame, shorter, and he was less stubble and more beard.

\---

Ray was different now too.

Though he still wore that same purple hoodie from a whole year ago, and his thick rimmed glasses remained rightfully there, Ray’s face was hollow.

And looking at Ray now, Gavin thought, as something awful gripped at his chest tight, was like looking in a mirror one year ago.

\---

Ray watched as Gavin’s bright eyes and dark skin practically melted away. He looked pained very suddenly, and he made as if to speak but seemed to choke on his own sharp and abrupt intake of breath.

\---

“Who’s at the door?” A distressingly familiar voice called from somewhere far off inside the house. Ray and Gavin shared an insufferably painful look, and neither one said a word for a too long moment.

For the first time, Ray seemed to notice Dan, as he placed a comforting hand on Gavin’s hip. It didn’t quite offer the same sense of protection and security that it usually did; not here.

“Ray…” Gavin finally spoke in a whisper. “Why?”

“Ray? Who’s here?” That voice was getting closer, and it made Gavin visibly tense. He took a single step back, into Dan.

Still, Ray gave Gavin nothing but a cold and empty gaze, even as Michael rounded the corner behind him. Even as Dan made himself into a barricade for Gavin, built up an impenetrable wall around him to protect him from Michael Jones.

Ray did nothing but let a single tear fall.

\---

Without Gavin, Ray had sought out comfort in the only other person he knew had any connection to him at all.

It had not been difficult to convince himself to love Michael.

Even if it did hurt to love Michael, Ray knew he could do it. Even if Michael never seemed to be any less angry, even if Ray could never be quite what he wanted, he could withstand it, and he could even come out smiling.

Being with Michael was what it took to remember Gavin. Ray could take that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading We're The Same, keep an eye out for updates soon.


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